Thursday, 30 January 2014

Tibetan mastiffs are an ancient
breed long revered as adept guard dogs.Not
only are they ancient dog with a rich history, dating back to nomad times in Central Asia.They
have become a modern-day craze in China. The special breed of dog is
becoming more and more popular across China, but besides popularity, it's
associated with affluence. It is viewed as a holy animal, and legend has it
that Tibetan mastiffs provide their owners with a blessing to their health and
security. They are independent and intelligent, and protective of their owners
and their property.
An 11-month-old red Tibetan mastiff has become the world's most expensive dog
after being purchased in China
for just over $1.5 million.
Although the specifics of the sale are confidential, the seller divulged that a
multi-millionaire coal baron from northern China purchased the Tibetan mastiff,
affectionately called "Big Splash" or "Hong Dong" in
Chinese.

Monday, 27 January 2014

Using MRI
technology, scientists at EmoryUniversity ( Atlanta,
USA ) set out
to determine how dogs' brains work, and they discovered that dogs experience
emotions in a way comparable to humans.

For two years researcher
Berns and his colleagues have trained dogs to enter an MRI scanner while awake
and unrestrained. Typically, animals are anesthetized so they won't move during
a scan, but you can't study brain functions like perception and emotion when an
animal is asleep.

Another reason
Berns chose not to anesthetize his canine participants is because he says
wanted to treat the dogs like people.

All the dogs in
the study have consent forms signed by their owners, and only positive training
methods are used to prepare the animals for the MRI.

Berns' own dog,
Callie, was the first dog to have her brain scanned. With the help of a dog
trainer, Berns taught Callie to enter an MRI simulator.

Callie learned to
enter the tube, place her head in a chin rest and sit still while wearing
earmuffs to protect her ears from the machine's noise.

After a few
months of training, Callie was ready for her first MRI, and Berns and his
colleagues got their first maps of canine brain activity.

Other owners soon
volunteered their dogs for research, and Berns has now scanned more than a
dozen of their brains. The more data he gathers, the more he's convinced that
dogs aren't that different from us.

The canine brain
maps showed Berns that dogs use a region of the brain known as the caudate
nucleus in a similar way to humans.

These findings
don’t necessarily mean that our dogs love us, but because many of the same
things activate both the human caudate and the dog caudate, neuroscientists say
this could be an indication of canine emotions.

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

The Kennel Club
in calling upon the Government and Scottish Parliament to introduce an outright
ban on the use of electric shock collars as devices to train a dog.Subjected to an electric shock, a dog will respond
out of fear of further punishment, rather than from a natural willingness to
obey. In order for the devices to serve effectively as a training tool, the dog
has to perceive the shock as painful - moreover if the dog does not respond,
the punishment has to escalate, creating further potential for abuse.

A number of
research studies have found electric shock collars to be unnecessary in the
training of dogs.These collars can
cause negative behavioural and physiological changes in dogs and are open to
misuse by users of them. Often owners may not even know how to use one of these
collars. When a dog gets shocked, it has
no idea what has caused the pain and reacts fearfully.It is likely to associate the pain with
something in its immediate environment rather than with its own behaviour at
the time, which is why it is common for dogs to attack other dogs, their owner
or another animal or person close-by at the time of the shock.

Dogs with
behavioural issues are a problem.But we
have to ask ourselves why some dogs problems. Not properly trained in puppyhood, lack of
leadership, abuse, disrespect, selfishness, congeniality. Dogs want to please.Dogs love unconditionally so why should pain
be inflicted on them?

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

I read this on the BBC News webpage and I thought I would spread the news.

"Signs are to be put up in the New
Forest warning dog owners about a mysterious disease that has killed 13 dogs
across Britain in recent months.

The Forestry Commission notices tell owners to take their pet to a vet should
it develop lesions on its legs, paws or face.

Vets say the disease - which leads to kidney failure - is similar to "Alabama
Rot", which was first seen in the US in the 1980s.

The source of the disease is unknown.

However, the Environment Agency has ruled out chemical contamination in water
supplies.

The majority of the dogs that died in the past year were in the New Forest,
but there were also others in Surrey, Cornwall, Worcestershire and County
Durham.

The notices say owners should take their dog to a vet even if the lesions
appear a week after a walk.

Alabama Rot had been associated with greyhounds, but the deaths in Britain in
the past year have affected a variety of breeds.'Trigger' unknown
David Walker, from Anderson Moores Veterinary Specialists in Hursley, near
Winchester, said: "What I would say is that if you see a skin wound on your dog
then don't just leave it.

"Ordinarily you might say I'll leave that for 24, 48 hours - I would say
don't do that, get down to your local vet."

He added: "The dogs that have pulled through seem to be the ones that have
presented earlier on in the disease course. However, that doesn't hold true for
all of the patients, and dogs seems to be affected to varying degrees."

Mr Walker said his practice first saw cases in December 2012 and since then
vets had developed a "much better handle on what the disease is" - but the
"trigger" is still unknown.

He said it was "very similar" to Alabama Rot, which was thought to be related
to a toxin produced by E. coli bacteria.Lesions on
legs
But Mr Walker said his team had "looked very hard" for the bacteria and the
toxin in infected dogs and not found either.

Alabama Rot - the common name for idiopathic renal glomerular vasculopathy -
only affected greyhounds when it was identified in the US in the 1980s.

The recent cases in England are different because various breeds have been
affected - but Mr Walker said the "pathology [of the disease] is exactly the
same".

Like Alabama Rot, the first external symptom of the disease affecting dogs in
England is lesions, usually on their legs.

More lesions can appear elsewhere on the body, and in some cases dogs can
suffer kidney failure and die."

Thursday, 16 January 2014

New
research indicates that, like many other animals, dogs are sensitive to the earth’s
magnetic field. However, instead of using it to navigate like many insects and
birds do, it appears that dogs have a preference for aligning themselves to the
earth’s magnetic axis when it’s time to poo.

At
least that’s the conclusion researchers came to at Prague University,
after studying 70 dogs from 37 different breeds over the course of two years.

Thursday, 9 January 2014

During the Cold War,
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F Kennedy wrote
to each other regularly. Despite the hostility between their countries, the two
men also exchanged presents. One was a dog called Pushinka, whose mother was
one of the first dogs to fly into space and return alive.

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Thank you to Cornish Dreamer: "Your compassion for animals always shows on the blog entries that you write and I find that to be a compelling reason to continue reading your blog." and to Violets Vintage: "You are an artist because you transform misguided dogs into perfect pets!" and to Winchester Whisperer: "You are the voice of reason."